Skill wasn’t enough for the Wranglers to overcome will last season, when Las Vegas lost in the first round of the playoffs for the third time in four years to eventual ECHL Western Conference champion Stockton.

Left wing Adam Huxley will return to the Wranglers this season as a player-assistant coach. An enforcer who has spent four of his nine ECHL seasons with Las Vegas, Huxley has the franchise record for most penalty minutes in a season (294 in 2004-05) and career (709).

Mike Madill played for the only two coaches the Wranglers have had. Today, the former Las Vegas defenseman and team captain will be introduced as the third coach and general manager in the ECHL franchise’s 10-year history, said a team source who requested anonymity.

In complete control of the game and their ECHL Western Conference quarterfinal series against Stockton early in the third period of Game 6 Friday night in California, the Wranglers completely unraveled down the stretch.

Quirky Wranglers goalie Joe Fallon has been known to read calculus books for fun, but you don’t have to be a math wizard to figure out Las Vegas is one win away from advancing to the second round of the ECHL Kelly Cup playoffs.

The last time Wranglers coach Ryan Mougenel and Stockton Thunder coach Matt Thomas faced each other in the playoffs was 1990, when their rival Toronto high schools squared off for the city championship.

Nothing was at stake for the Wranglers in Friday’s regular-season finale at Orleans Arena, but losing to Bakersfield, the worst team in the ECHL, before a crowd of 6,769 on fan appreciation night wasn’t the way they wanted to enter the playoffs.